Organization through chaos

This is completely self inflicted and a little crazy.  I've completely overloaded myself with what I call life financial maintenance. 

Like every owner of a home should do. I have a calendar event every year to check insurance rates. This mostly has me going to 5 or 6 major companies and putting in my information to match my current coverage.  Then comparing rates and going with the lowest, which is usually the current company.  The annoying part is the amount of email and phone calls we get doing this.

Something different happened this year instead of just getting the usually email/phone calls I got a quote in my email from one of the companies this a significantly lower rate in the amount of $1200 per year.  This isn't new and mostly a trick. The usually have this low quote and have high deductibles or lower coverage.  In this case is was spot on.  I emailed the agent back said I was interested and had a couple of question.  Unfortunately for me he wanted to talk on the phone to discuss options and to make sure I had the right coverage.   This is great for the agent. I don't really like it one I really don't like talking on the phone and two it is easy to see costs on the screen vs on the phone. 

Once I got this all figured out I contacted by current company to see if they could match it.  They couldn't so I switch.  Switching car and umbrella is easy.  Escrow is a little trickier specially if you get unlucky like I did and mortgage company pays your next years insurance right after you switched.  Now I have to pay the refund game and get a refund from my old company, make sure the new insurance is paid, and probably refund my escrow.   What a pain.  What I get to waiting until the last minute to change though.

While I was doing this I was also looking to refinance my mortgage again. We are planning on going back to a 30 year loan to be able to get extra cash in our pocket.  This is it's own topic on issues and best way to avoid. Always good to have two good quotes to have the companies compete with.

If this wasn't enough we were also looking at hiring a nanny this year, because the kids will be doing school from home this year.  - wow the things I learned from this experience.

Since all of these things were very time sensitive I was definitely feeling the pressure.  I used excel sheet to help me track the cost and which options were best.  I highly recommend to do something similar. Take a deep breath and relax.